McCain's Move to Canonize "St. Ronnie"

The former president is certainly a suitable subject for public debate. His supporters credit him with forcing down the Iron Curtain, so it is odd that some of them have helped create the Soviet-style chill embedded in the idea that we, as a nation, will not allow critical portrayals of one of our own recent leaders.

-- New York Times editorial, Nov. 5, 2003.

Anyone feeling a cold blast tonight? I am, and it's coming courtesy of Sen. John McCain, the man who might have been sitting in the Oval Office tonight as the 44th president -- if the economy had only waited two months longer to tank, and had Sarah Palin not made the acquaintance of one Katie Couric. In his race for the White House, McCain's effort to prove to the GOP's right wing that he wasn't really a moderate-to-conservative-to-liberal-to-conservative-again flip flopper led him to grab the Ronald Reagan mantle so hard he practically ripped it right out the fireplace.

He said he'd been a foot soldier in the "Reagan Revolution" and made a fantastical claim about celebrating Reagan's political ascent from his Hanoi prison cell. But as I learned when I was researching my book "Tear Down This Myth: How the Reagan Legacy Has Distorted Our Politics and Haunts Our Future," McCain was ignoring the reality that as a center-right newcomer to Congress in the 1980s, he frequently criticized the Gipper and opposed him as often as one-third of the time. Whatever..it was politics, and it still didn't get him to the White House.

But the election is over now, and I find this pretty disturbing. McCain is saying that he may vote against an Obama appointee for the sole reason that the nominee made what strikes me as a fairly tepid criticism of the 40th president, in a comment that was really aimed at George W. Bush. Check this out:

Arizona Republican Sen. John McCain today denounced as "highly offensive" remarks about Ronald Reagan made by President Barack Obama's nominee for the number two spot at the Department of the Interior.

At a nomination hearing for David Hayes for deputy secretary of Interior, the former Republican presidential candidate read aloud from an article that Hayes wrote in April 2006 which drew unfavorable comparisons between former President George W. Bush and Reagan.

When the headline came over in a Google news alert today and I read the first paragraph, I prepared to cringe -- what Hayes said about Reagan, who died on 2004 and whose widow Nancy is still alive -- must have been truly awful, right? But here's what Hayes wrote in 2006:

"Like Ronald Reagan before him, President Bush has embraced the Western stereotype to the point of adopting some of its affectations--the boots, brush-clearing, and get-the-government-off-our-backs bravado."

Where's the blasphemy? Reagan and much more so Bush really were urban cowboys with a strange obsession for brush clearing that seemed to evaporate the same hour their presidencies expired, when the Reagans headed for a tony, supporter-built mansion in the L.A. hills while Bush abandoned Crawford for the mall district of Dallas. "Bravado" can be a politically loaded word, to be sure, but...."highly offensive"? Really, John McCain (who once told this joke about Chelsea Clinton, but I disgress...)? McCain actually said he may not vote for Hayes because of the Reagan remark.

Last time I checked, this is America, not the Vatican. We are a nation with heroes by the boatloads, but not a single saint. No public figure, living or dead, should be immune from legitimate criticism -- to seek to block a person from a political office for making such a relatively innocuous public writing is chilling indeed. That such an anti-speech move would come from the man who almost placed his right hand on the Bible to "preserve, protect and defend the Constitution..." is appalling. America will never solve its problems of the present without honest appraisals of past leaders like Reagan, warts and all.

As a quick footnote tonight, on the same subject of tearing down myths, kudos to a Republican state senator from California named Roy Ashburn, who voted for a budget that included tax increases to keep the Golden State from plunging into the abyss. Ashburn staved off a recall drive by noting he was just following the example of Reagan, who enacted the largest tax increase in U.S. state history as California governor in 1967. I guess facts really are stubborn things, after all.

Comments

[Figerre]

SO, is THIS where we discuss how 'St Ronnie' cut off all funding for R&D on alternative energy studies? and that is one of the reasons we are so dependent upon foreign oil? He cancalled EVERYTHING Carter had started regarding energy savings. So - is he maybe not quite the saint McCain thinks he is?

[Flarbytown]

Why does anyone listen to McCain anyway? They guy's worthless and has no real convictions. He's a republican lapdog who barks about his independence and always votes as the party tells him.

Reagan was in many ways worse than W. He figured that AIDS was a gay disease and would just wipe out gays--something the repubs have always prayed to their horned/pointy tailed "god" for. He presided over a protracted recession, high unemployment, high interest rates, and high inflation. And almost bankrupted the US in an effort to outspend the Soviet Union, who was already on its way to bankruptcy anyway. When he ran for pres in 1980, he said that trees were a major cause of air pollution. And dolts across the country still voted for him, the guy who screwed up California so badly.

[demockracy]

Besides "Tear Down That Myth," the best de-beatification of Reagan, IMHO, is Paul Krugman's "Peddling Prosperity," an absolutely crystal-clear look at the whole culture of scam-artis­ts-called-­economists­.

Turns out, Reagan's "Morning in America" was an average business cycle recovery bought at a cost of deficits that exceeded all previous administrations' combined. The only exception to that "average" description was that capital spending -- the engine of future productivity growth, and any real income increases -- was flat because of that deficit.

Of course, when comparing administrations for indictments for malfeasance in office, Reagan's was second only to the Nixon administration.

But no, he's a saint!

[nobozos]

I find McCain's position ironic, since a straight line can be drawn from our current economic mess back to the fanatical government deregulation of Reaganomics.

[Truby]

Idolization and hero worship always result in recreating the person posthumously as a flawless and faultless creature. No doubt many fine people have led exemplary lives and deserve to be remember fondly but not as perfect. The idea that a person engaged in politics was without flaw is humorous. Compromise is at the very heart of our political system and engaging in it is how people move up while at the same time it compromises them.
McCain's time past long ago as he had made so many compromises he could no longer remember what, if anything, he stood for. Reagan stood for little in the first place and this made it easier to compromise with little effect on his career. Heroes are good things to have but it is a good idea to remember them as the flawed humans they are or were.

[AngelaQuattrano]

It's just because McCain feels such a deep tie to Reagan and Bush, being a carpetbagger himself.

[JiminNC]

I thought he was Panamanian.

[mountaingal]

Let McCain continue to bumble and descend into his own world. He is getting further away from reality every day. His true nature as a petty small thinker with delusions of grandeur is becoming more apparant. What good anyone saw in him was only his calculated phoniness.

Thank God he didn't get elected.

[veteran1964]

I think what McCain REALLY NEEDS TO DO is go back to Arizona and try to help the tumbling foreclosure problems in his state. Arizona leads the nation in foreclosures.....I wonder if McCain needs to produce an EARMARK to help his state........Maybe it would help his voters decide on whom to vote for next election......HEY MCCAIN....FORGET ABOUT REAGAN....HE IS DEAD.....Grab a book and watch the news....IT IS 2009 --- NOT 1960 AND 1970......­..........­..........­.........G­et off your old ways and wake up...Your people in Arizona need you to do something about the economy there......OH I FORGOT...YOU DON'T KNOW MUCH ABOUT ECONOMICS.­....SORRY.

[CML96]

Reagan was a grade B actor from Hollywood. But now he is the only shining star in the republican party?
How pathetic. Get a grip John.

[zigzag1]

Who was actually President during the Reagan/Alzheimers years?

[punkingale]

Nancy's astrologer.

[siegfried]

It was Reagan who set us on the idiotic course of destroying our own manufacturing base.

[drkazmd65]

Yep,.... Thanks for that little legacy there Ronny.

[johnniesnoseride]

This isn't about Saint Reagan, it's about John McCain who is becoming more and more a pandering politician than anyone thought possible. This is just stupid. He can't find out how to get attention without being against something. He never offers anything except "cut taxes". I hope more and more people begin to see these republican hacks for what they are, anti-american obstructionists. They still can't fathom they actually lost and Americans are fed up with their antics.

[brijit]

Huh? This counts as "highly offensive remarks" against Reagan? Even considering the Republican penchant for fake, ginned-up outrage, this is remarkably silly. As last years campaign went on, there were beginning to be some doubts about McCain's mental status. But when he chose Palin, she out-goofied him so dramatically, that McCain"s deficits became less obvious. Now they are apparently starting to show up again.

[newshawk14]

The more I see McCain in action the more worthless he strikes me. Ronald Reagan nominated
one of the worst Secretaries of the Interior ever, with James Watt. That someone might make an
objection to this strikes me as entirely reasonable, or did McCain have his nose buried to the hilt.

[MikeDu]

Ah yes, James "We don't need to worry about endangered species because the rapture is coming" Watt. I had forgot all about him.

[PatrickforO]

Mom, David said bad things about Ronnie! I'm not helping now, because my feelings are hurt. I'm going into my room to sulk. Yes, I know we all need to work together, but David said bad things about Ronnie! I'm not gonna do it, not gonna do it...

[cobraxus]

the secret to Reagan's popularity was that he distanced himself from his own administration and its policies.he was president in name only.

[PatrickforO]

Nancy pretty much ran the country, especially during the second term.